Skype for Linux 1.4 Beta Update: Salad Sandwich
Hello again! Here we are with your fresh Salad Sandwich. Sorry if the lettuce around the edges is a bit cold, but we’ve had it in the fridge for a couple of weeks (yes, this release came a little late). Fear not, however, as it has not gone stale. This sandwich includes a whole bunch of changes, even more than the first beta release.
First up, animated emoticons have been improved greatly and now perform better than they did on any previous Linux Skype release.
Equally important however, are changes to the audio volume level handling. Skype will now attempt to automatically adjust your microphone capture volume if it detects that you’re too loud or quiet during the call. Along with these changes also came better support for some USB audio devices that run at non-standard bitrates.
Some other useful features to boot in this release are the ability to start Skype minimized, hide offline users, and Quickfilter searching through historical events. We also now have proper RPM packages for SuSE and Mandriva.
There really have been a huge number of feature enhancements, changes and bugfixes in this release, so I strongly suggest reading the full changelog for details. A number of people will notice their bugs in the public bugtracking system fixed. If you know of a bug that still isn’t fixed, please be sure to check for them. If they exist, vote/watch the bug. If they don’t exist, create them. You can also discuss any issues you’re experiencing on our forum.
Thanks! It’s nice to see Skype for Linux reach maturity. I like the interface improvements and call quality is excellent.
What is your feature focus going to be for the next release?
Unfotunately, it crashes on my Debian (SID an not ETCH as recommended) with the following message:
terminate called after throwing an instance of ‘Skype::Exceptions::GetObjectError’
what(): Call w/ objectID
Aborted
Thanks, this is going in the right direction. I was wondering, why are some of the options greyed out, that weren’t on the last Beta release? Overall it’s clearly improved, but I wish I could change some of the notifications. I’m running Mandriva.
This new release is ok on debian Etch.
I hope we’ll not have to wait for Lenny stable to have the video support.
Go on.
The new version well is improved. It is possible that the necessities most urgent now are the video and the internationalization (for the time being only has in English). I mandriva use 2007 and was satisfied with the specific package.
Dourado.
I really like new, fresh UI design. As for now, this beta release works flawlessly on my openSUSE 10.2 box. But, as always there are some things that probably need to be changed when the final version arrives. a) New Dialpad looks great, but first, integrated version was slitely better, of course, from my perspective. b) Please implement Group Contacts in new, even beta release. c) Change this hidous gray background in Skype Credit to something, I don’t know, lighter maybe, for example: skype logo in white background. d) Chat style’s are still missing:/ Keep up the good work
We want video!!
Great work anyways. Hope it is in the next release!
Keep them coming
Hello
I’m installing Skype on Redhat Enterprise Linux 4. But It’s not sucessful.
I logged in as root user. I installed Qt4.2.1, D-Bus 1.0.0, # libsigc++ 2.0.2, libasound2 1.0.12, and then was Skype in /opt/Skype Directory. After that, I run ./skype. It’s show an error as follows:
./skype: error while loading shared libraries: libQtDBus.so.4: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory.
I tried to find libQtDbus.so.4 file, but I can’t find it.
Could you pls. help me intall Skype on Redhat Linux ES4.
Thanks & Best Regard!
Duong Ngoc Lam
Thanks for this update, it works better than the previous version. But I had a complete system freeze after changing some settings in the “Sound devices” part of the settings.
Aside of that, I would like to know why skype chose to maintain 3 different codebases for 3 different OS, instead of using a crossplatform toolkit? (e.g. the one you use in the linux version) You guys have been reinventing the wheel 3 times so far. Some would call this a softwareengineering nightmare…
This version is still not in the debian/ubuntu repositories (deb http://download.skype.com/linux/repos/debian/ stable non-free)
Hi folks,
I don’t know if any of you guys is experiencing the same problem but since the “vegetable versions” are arrived, namely the 1.4.0.74 and 1.4.0.94, the accented letters (è,à,ò…) do not appear any longer on the chat window…
I perfectly understand that maybe this is no such a big deal when writing in English. However, I still need them for my native language (Italian) :
Anyway, great job guys…just keep going like this
Andrea
Hi, i say only one thing. Why isnt in this newest version of Skype accesed video? Where is the problem? Why? Why? Why?
vega1979: I have no issues with åäö.
Keeps getting better. I’m looking forward to video (that’s the only thing that makes me boot into Windows these days).
There are some strange issues with foreign characters. I don’t have a problem with accents (I just set my keyboard to U.S. international mode for them), but if I copy and paste non-latin unicode characters into a chat window I get numerical codes instead (for example, 你好 becomes u4f60u597d). I can, however, use scim to type such characters into the chat directly (before 1.4, scim didn’t work, but I could copy-paste).
How can I do for hiding offline users?
Sorry, I saw now that for hiding offline users i have to type Ctrl+U, but in my opinion it would be better the possibility of setting it somewhere in the skype’s window without typing anything, but just using the mouse!
Thank you for your work!
howestim: I’ve fixed this for the next public release — it really bugged me too.
michelegiacomoli: This will likely have a GUI option in the future, but probably not for 1.4.
Andrew.
I tested 1.4.0.99 on SuSE Linux 10.1 (32bit). I have to taken the static bzip2 package, cause 10.1 didn’t have QT 4.2 rpm’s.
Everything was fine – excellent GUI, no problems until now. I think sound quality is better than 1.3
Some options are disabled (like “inactive time”) – but this was mentioned before..
One proposal:
I’m also using Skype on Mac – the installation there is as easy as breathing..
And we have the Linux installation nightmare…
…and we will have the solution. ONE (1) LSB rpm for all distributions which supporting LSB.
Ok, Linux is still not arrived in the LSB paradise but we’re on the way. When LSB 3.2 or 4.0 does supporting QT 4.2 (or better 4.3) please provide a LSB compliant rpm package (and link all non-LSB stuff statically).
People who really want to work(!) on a Linux desktop will installing a LSB distro in the future!
best regards,
harald
One word: Video
ketjow84 and all others waiting for video please see the following post:
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?s=&showtopic=89848&view=findpost&p=426039
I am using beta 1.4.0.99. Big improvement, but I still can’t figure out how to hide offline contacts without a shortcut.
VERY, VERY annoying…
We will add it to the menu later. For now, you can use Ctrl-U to hide/unhide offline contacts.
Andrew.
So we have to wait for video one more year.
Ctrl+U – aha – How was anyone supposed to figure that out without reading the comments here? This was really bugging me for the last month.
On that note, are there any other hotkeys that could be useful to me? Is there a list in some documentation somewhere (because if there is I’m not finding it.)
Thanks for 1.4.0.99, great release, I liked the integrated dial-pad better, though.
Anyway there is a regression (a new bug) as well: hitting enter after writing the phone number in the “call ordinary phone number” dialog box starts two calls: I will have to cancel one for the other to suceed. Clicking on the green “place call” button will only start one call, on the other hand.
I use the ubuntu build.
Regarding the ‘Skype::Exceptions::GetObjectError’ realted crash:
I found that deleting the ~/.Skype directory made the new version stop crashing. (It seems running an older version creates config files that make the new verion barf)
Great! But, please add flashing button (and on group button) on new arrived message
when a 64bits version of skype? i´m tired of doing tricks to run it.
as there s no support for video it s doesn’t worth trying it.
will check at the next release
I’d much rather get SMS support than video support. And it would probably require a lot less code to implement.
oh well everybody needs animated emoticons. and the names of the releases are so “funny” omg…
get focused on the important things
- 64bit
- video
- sources
VIDEO !!!
64bit ?
start use Gentoo !!!
32 on my 64 system is clear to me (any user).
even running 32bit drivers for lightscribe DVD drive.
Bottom line:
I’M READY TO PAY FOR VIDEO FEATURE !!!
probably i’m not the only one, so you, pro MS creatures, could hire linux team.
Seriously: You need a linux team. I don’t want to insult you, but i think you would agree, that you can’t do it all alone! I mean, how can be, that so many linux users are not satisfied with your work and you can’t even tell, you need some help?
We are asking two years now for video, and you don’t have even a time schedule for this future. No, I’m not frustrated, I just wanted to say it loud, what I think is right!
I agree totally with sonux78.Only two persons working on linux skype…we are not second class users and it is clear that 2 programmers can’t do that alone.
We Want Video!
sure..you seem to have some progress. congratulation. but give me a “real” reason to try a version where even allready working things (e.g. groups) are gone.
By the way, what the heck is “platform independent programming” .. how could that be: Win 3.5 & LINUX 1.4 at the same time??
Ok.
I dont care about video, but I care about two things:
- Skypecasts support (if possible Firefox Integration).
- Hide logged off contacts.
Ctrl+Q – Quit
Ctrl+W – close Window
Ctrl+E – show Events (history)
Ctrl+U – hide/show offline Users
Ctrl+O – Options
Ctrl+Z – undo
Ctrl+X – cut (or copy)
Ctrl+C – Copy
Ctrl+V – paste
How to join to Skypecast?! I can only create it, but can`t join! Only if frend send me skypecas call number (like +99999999999999).
Hello, is this version to be considered as finished??? no more releases in a month and a half…and many work to do… very slow development!
is Skype™ 1.4 development dead?
I’m always installing the latest version of Skype on my machines more than 2 years ago, but I’m using it once in a month only, while I have to chat, or make calls avg 2-4 hours a day.
I have to use 2 or more other clients (mostly pidgin for chat, openwengo for video, sometimes gizmo for voip) to contact with my friends and colleges from the other side (Windows users with Skype client for Windows), because I need Beagle searchable chat logs, os integration, video support, plugin support, etc…
Why is this so difficult, to make a standard compliant (v4l based, os integrated, extendable) Skype client for Linux?
It is almost one year now (it was on Okt. 7th 2006) when I posted first here asking for a better skype that does not crash. Half a year later we got a version which is much much better but still has some bugs (call window opens twice when ENTER button is pressed on ordinary call window, …). Since I am living far away from home most time I would like to see my family with skype.
You promised us video for skype in the first half of this year. Linux community is really not impatient but we would like to know about the status of the development.
As today is my birthday it would be a good opportunity to surprise me with a little gift…
I downloaded Skype (Linux) the same day I was married. My wife has now grown too old and ugly so I no longer want video. Thanks anyway…
Hi, I get the error message “Call Failed: Problem with Audio Playback” when setting up a call.
However, when other people calls me, everything works fine.
I use Ubuntu 7.04 (ASUS motherboard, integrated (VIA) sound, Skype version 1.4.0.99)
Is it so diffucult to make a working version for Linux? Especially 64bit and Video????
But this doesn’t care the developers because we are only the Linux community.
Really stupid!!!